Making the Business Case for Drupal:WEEI 93.7 FM and AM 680 WRKO Case Study

Presented by: Carlson Mozdiez

Drupal Business Summit – BostonNovember 15, 2012

A little about us

• Entercom Communications• Over 100 radio stations in 23 markets• Named by Information Week as one of the Top 500

Technology Innovators in U.S.• Boston cluster consists of WEEI, WRKO and WAAF

• WEEI 93.7 FM / WEEI.com• Home of the Red Sox, Celtics & Patriots Monday &

Friday

• AM 680 WRKO / WRKO.com• Home of Howie Carr and Rush Limbaugh

What’s on tap

I. Who we were, who we wanted to be, and who we are today

II. Why we chose Drupal for our business

III. How is Drupal setting us up for future success

IV. Q&A

Who we were

The Old WEEI.com

Who we were and who we wanted to be

2008

•Standard radio web site• Vendor template• Stream• Program Schedule• Enter a contest• Audio on demand• Basic syndicated sports news

Our Goals• Change the game• Become an original content publisher• Establish 3rd party content and distribution relationships• Compete not only on a regional level, but a national level• Create a new revenue stream

What we did

• CMS vetting process

• RFP for a site design

• Hired a staff• Developer• Designer• Site Editor

• Hosting partner

Who we are today

WEEI.com

Our site growth

From 260K uniques and 2.2M page views to 1.4M uniques and 8M page views

Our mobile site growth

Who we’ve become

• Staff of world class journalists

• Comprehensive distribution

• Mobile

• Stand alone multi-million dollar business

• 2011 RadioInk Web Site of the Year

• 2011 RadioInk finalist for Best Brand Extension Through Streaming

• 2012 Marconi for national Sports Station of the Year

• 2012 RAIN Internet Radio Awards Finalist for Best Overall Digital Strategy • Finalists were ESPN Audio, iHeartRadio, Spotify, and Sports radio WEEI/Boston

Why we chose Drupal for our business

Why we chose Drupal for our business

•Cost• No licensing fees

•Implementation• Outsourced design• Executed build with one Drupal developer

•Open Source vs. Off the shelf CMS vs. Proprietary • How open source fit our business and content goals• Type of media publishing we wanted to do

•Talent acquisition

Why we chose Drupal for our business•Staying on top of the latest trends and technology• Large Community

• Continuously working to improve the platform and provide solutions• Forums• Drupal Groups

•Potential for scalability

•Our user profiles• We have a wide variety of users (writers, promotions people, managers, etc)• Ease of training on our Drupal CMS admin

•Stability and efficiency• Create hierarchical structures of content, helping to organize things so that users are

able to find them presented logically

Why we chose Drupal for our business•SEO

• Page titles and meta tags• Advanced URL control

• http://www.weei.com/sports/boston/football/patriots/kirk-minihane/2012/11/15/brandon-spikes-really-punk

•Custom content types and views• Blogs, columns, forums, tutorials, podcasts• Create as many as we would like and display however we like• No programming knowledge required

•Revision control• New version of page every time you are done editing• Allows you to revert to old posts

•Taxonomy• Organize and tag content

How is Drupal setting us up for future success

• Relationship between Drupal and Acquia• Stability of the platform backed by a company in it for the long haul

• Potential for scalability • Template that can be applied across other Entercom markets/stations

if/when we are ready• Efficiency of developing and deploying across multiple sites

• API implementation• Key partners like RAMP (audio), Brightcove (video) and Triton (database)

How is Drupal setting us up for future success

• Entercom Boston Project Management Platform• Tried several others

• Open Atrium is an open source platform designed specifically to make great teams communicate better.

• An intranet in a box

• Completely customizable

Again…why Drupal?

“Personally, I find myself yearning for more than re-skinning the same functionality. I want to solve complex problems with simple solutions. When I do build sites, I want a CMS that meshes with my philosophy. For me, that means Drupal.”

- Nathan Smith, Drupal developer

Question and Answer